Shadows
by BlueDiamondStar
Summary: Who's in your shadows? Who's ready to play? Are we the hunters? Or are we the prey? There's no surrender And there's no escape Are we the hunters? Or are we the prey?


p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #eeeeee; background-color: #333333;"There usually wasn't much to say after the regular battle or mission, depends on how you looked at the whole thing. Cade for all he was never kept a judgmental bone on himself. But still someone judged the way he did his job and many would be surprised he still was walking around free. /p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #eeeeee; background-color: #333333;"Agency that saved his life all those years ago when he had been left to die, especially the boy who came along, had been his home and family ever since. /p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #eeeeee; background-color: #333333;"The whatever memories and life he had before waking up on the white bed sheets was all gone to the darkness. Clean slate and all. /p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #eeeeee; background-color: #333333;"Nothing should be there to remember. But he did. Something in his mind felt different and warped over one thing that basically didn't leave him alone for the years to come. /p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #eeeeee; background-color: #333333;"a id="cutid1" style="color: #ffffff; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; cursor: pointer; border-style: initial initial solid initial;" rel="nofollow" name="cutid1"/a/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #eeeeee; background-color: #333333;"There was a number lodged in his mind that made littlest of sense but also gave some point to think over and over again. /p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #eeeeee; background-color: #333333;"The life itself wasn't that much to suffer about. He had food and roof. His sheets were always clean and clothes always stitched back together. He had mission to do and after that mostly training for the next one. Easy life, one would think. However they would be missing so much of life had they been subjected to this kind of life. /p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #eeeeee; background-color: #333333;"Only rare would ever think beyond the part of having stability. That always came with a price like everything in this life no matter who you were. /p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #eeeeee; background-color: #333333;"Kincaid Lawrence strong style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"''/strongspan style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: oblique; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"Cade/spanstrong style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"'' /strong Foster was a man of dark past and even he didn't know his secrets and skeletons in the closet. All he was stuck with was the life the people who saved him had given for the price of doing jobs for them. They called missions. He called them battles for most part as his sneaky hands tend to take just one more item, span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: oblique; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"for himself/span, as then it all went to hell. /p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #eeeeee; background-color: #333333;"Cade was a thief by heart and he had not failed to take a lock apart to get inside whenever his mind settled. /p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #eeeeee; background-color: #333333;"In more ways than one it should be unnerving. But somehow it wasn't. /p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #eeeeee; background-color: #333333;"He was mostly called by his last name but only the other man he felt some kind of kinship in this dark hole they called ''the base'' called him by his given name. As given as it was. He had no known family that could tell if the name that was on his tag on the door was the one he was supposed to be wearing once given birth. /p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #eeeeee; background-color: #333333;"However the leaders had also given him a code name. Everyone wore a code name on mission. If it was spying job he'd be given aliases too. But in the radio or other kind of connection back with base it was the code name. As much as he was great at whatever mission it was he enjoyed the ones he could use his fight skill. And those came in a lot. /p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #eeeeee; background-color: #333333;"Not that being a spy was anything less, it mostly just bored the man. /p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #eeeeee; background-color: #333333;"Now shooting was a more fun to go with. /p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #eeeeee; background-color: #333333;"He was a master at killing now. And one of the most feared man on the base. Because they called him span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: oblique; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"''Shadow Hunter'' /span/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #eeeeee; background-color: #333333;"And shadows he wore like cape. He was proud of his shadows. More ways than one. And no doubt he had shadows. Just as much as the ones he was hunting. /p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #eeeeee; background-color: #333333;"Because deep inside he was a hunter. /p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #eeeeee; background-color: #333333;"Not a spy, but a hunter, a shadow hunter. /p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #eeeeee; background-color: #333333;"And that made Cade so fierce and efficient. In a fight he was a force to reckon. And proud about that. /p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #eeeeee; background-color: #333333;"As most days when there was no mission on board for him he would spy the base grounds. Maybe it was to keep up with the skill, maybe to just annoy whoever was in charge. Maybe it was his own wild game of survival./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #eeeeee; background-color: #333333;"Because the man had his own shadows hunting him. Dark shadows that came back to his mind even if he had no idea what it was. /p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #eeeeee; background-color: #333333;"Sometimes those were dreams of other times, sometimes a scumbag of especially annoying part came back to haunt him. /p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #eeeeee; background-color: #333333;"It was something he knew would come. It always does. His only friend he ever had in his life, the equally strong fighter and masterful spy named Clint, had said that from the dark in your own shadows there is no hiding. /p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #eeeeee; background-color: #333333;"One just had to go with it. Die or fight, he'd said. /p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #eeeeee; background-color: #333333;"Cade had been fighting ever since. Not letting them crush him in fight. Because if you let your own dark take over you're done. Just like leaders had said. They'd kill a guy for not being able to put their own mind aside for the mission. /p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #eeeeee; background-color: #333333;"Inevitable. That had been one way to describe it. There were nightmares he didn't understand and there were horrible visions. He saw blood and death all around and it slowly became too much. /p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #eeeeee; background-color: #333333;"And he broke one day./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #eeeeee; background-color: #333333;"Never to be one for falling he did fall. And so hard he couldn't get back up. It was the end he never wanted to have. The years of being on top of the game and then falling so hard he only could look at the barrel and flinch at when it was supposed to take his mind with it. He decided to be man about his own inevitable death at least. So he faced the man who had been the only one worthy of taking the place on the other end of the barrel. He knew it was far from perfect because they both had wanted to die from an arrow. The only two people equal to each other and so masterful at archery there was no need to send them separately on those missions. Even if they were one man jobs. Sometimes the leaders had more heart than they were given credit. /p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #eeeeee; background-color: #333333;"But neither would die here from an arrow. That was rule of the base. /p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #eeeeee; background-color: #333333;"Instead they handed Clint a gun and with a nod he'd faced Cade. That was something both had agreed. They only were allowed to die from each other's hand. /p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #eeeeee; background-color: #333333;"As Clint pulled the trigger as he stared in the frosty grey-blue eyes of the man that had been his life for more years than his own family. He was the one who found the other man dying at the shore and brought in with him. He made sure to give the second chance. It was all Clint who had the talk with superiors about taking in strangers. Somehow he ended up training together with the stranger and fining a friend and family in the man with sneaky hands and sharpest aim since himself./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #eeeeee; background-color: #333333;"He pulled the trigger and closed his eyes. The sight of bullet hitting the flesh of someone he chose to let in was not what his mind wanted to play over even if he would the following months. Then he decided to leave if not turn the gun over and be done with it. Only they knew. So they let only one bullet grace the chamber. Because they saw it in his stare. They felt it in his heart. He would pull the trigger on himself. /p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #eeeeee; background-color: #333333;"But he didn't. He only dropped to his knees and hugged the man he dared to love and held his limp body as close and as long as he could. /p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #eeeeee; background-color: #333333;" /p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #eeeeee; background-color: #333333;" /p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #eeeeee; background-color: #333333;" /p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #eeeeee; background-color: #333333;" align="center"span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: oblique; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"This was their wild game of survival. It was what hid in their shadows. /span/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #eeeeee; background-color: #333333;" align="center"span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: oblique; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"They were hunters and they were prey. Of their own minds./span/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #eeeeee; background-color: #333333;" align="center"span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: oblique; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"And there was no surrender nor escape. /span/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #eeeeee; background-color: #333333;" align="center"span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: oblique; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"In their shadows laid themselves. /span/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #eeeeee; background-color: #333333;" align="center"span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: oblique; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"And maybe the bullet to the heart was what they could get as close as escape. /span/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #eeeeee; background-color: #333333;" align="center"span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: oblique; font-size: 26.46px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"But still there always will be shadows... /span/p 


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